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On July 16, 2005 Iran’s Intelligence Minister ‘Ali Younesi announced that the Iranian authorities have arrested and deported between 2,000 and 3,000 members of the Al-Qai’da terrorist organization. According to Younesi, this large group of “Sunni theology students and clerics” was based in eastern Iran, where it planed to attack Iranian interests. This recent wave of arrests – which was made public primarily by the Iranian government itself – raises an important question: Iran and Al-Qa’ida, friends or foes?
Both Iran and Al-Qa’ida are listed on the United States’ terror list. Both are engaged, directly or by proxy, in terror acts against mutual enemies such as the U.S., Israel, and other Western countries, as well as some ‘heretic’ Muslim countries. Both invest tremendous amounts of money, trying to advance their radical Islamic ideology and spread it around the world. Logically speaking, the two have no reason not to cooperate in their efforts – and that may well be the case.
But a large dissimilarity is nevertheless apparent: The Islamic Republic of Iran adheres to the Shi’ite school of thought [1], while Al-Qa’ida is known as a Sunni organization. To many in the Western world this might not mean a lot, but in the Muslim world people have been aware of – if not directly involved with – this massive conflict almost since the birth of Islam in the seventh century.
Trying to answer the question of whether the two are friends or enemies, Dr. ‘Ali Ansari, an Iran expert from St. Andrews University in Britain, encountered some difficulty. “It is just impossible to make a definitive statement one way or another. One has to look at the balances and probabilities.” Nevertheless, according to Ansari, Al-Qa’ida has actually seen Iran as a potential enemy, and “in fact Al-Qa’ida has listed Iran – believe it or not – along with the United States and Israel as the unholy alliance against Sunni purism.” Al-Qa’ida, says Ansari, has been interested in “taking out retaliation against Iran, particularly because the Iranians actually provided some assistance to the coalition powers when the Taliban were defeated in 2001.”
The first step in the U.S. war on terror was the invasion of Afghanistan, which was ruled by the Taliban. Until the invasion in 2002, the Taliban regime gave Al-Qa’ida a free hand to train in Afghanistan. In September 1998 this terrorist haven was jeopardized. Iran had placed 200,000 troops along the Afghani borders, as tension between the countries rose. In the end, war was prevented. Al-Qa’ida, however, did not forget.
But did it forgive? An Iranian defector, Hamid Reza Zakeri, claims it did. A recently published book, written by Kenneth Timmerman, relies extensively on several interviews he had with Zakeri, who claims to be a former employee in Section 110 of the Iranian Supreme Leader’s Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS). According to Zakeri, Section 110 is in charge of intelligence operations, counterintelligence, and overseas terrorist attacks.
In his book, Timmerman writes that Zakeri tried to give critical information to the CIA back in July 2001. The information included no less than a warning of an impending terrorist attack on the United States to take place on September 10 the same year. Zakeri insisted that Iran had been closely involved with Al-Qa’ida in the planning phase of the attack. The CIA, said Zakeri, refused to listen and did not pass the information up the chain.
Zakeri further claims that he “personally handled security” at two meetings in Iran, held between top Al-Qa’ida operatives and Iranian officials just months before September 11. He backs up his account of the two meetings with a letter, allegedly signed by ‘Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri, head of MOIS. In the letter, dated May 14, 2001, Nateq Nouri quoted Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamanai as ordering MOIS to “strike at [America’s] economic structure, their reputation – and their internal peace and security.” Nateq Nouri also instructed his counterpart at MOIS, Mu’stafa Pourghanad, to work to “improve our plans, especially in coordination with fighters of Al-Qa’ida and Hizbullah to find one objective that is beneficial to both sides.”
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Letter allegedly from Nateq Nouri (Free Iran Project)
Was Hamid Reza Zakeri indeed an agent at MOIS? Did he truly attend meetings between Al-Qa’ida and Iranian officials? And did he forge the letter from Nateq Nouri? – These are all open questions.
“The problem with these defectors,” says Ansari, “is that it is really difficult for anyone, particularly one from an academic environment, to judge the veracity of these individuals. They do pop up at key times to provide some damning evidence. I have no idea if this gentleman Zakeri is a realistic and honest person at all.”
In his announcement on July 16, Younesi said several hundred Al-Qa’ida members had not been expelled, but were still detained in Iranian jails. Dr. Soli Shahvar, an Iran expert from the University of Haifa, in Israel, questions the reasons for this “detention.” “These Al-Qa’ida people, in my opinion, are not really under arrest, but rather serve as future bargain chips,” says Shahvar. “Al-Qa’ida, like Hizbullah, can serve as bargain chips sometime in the future, during negotiations with the U.S.”
Shahvar, similar to Ansari, is quick to explain that he has no concrete evidence from within the Iranian regime, and that what he says is only his private opinion. Having said that, Shahvar believes, “Iran finds it comfortable to use the Al-Qa’ida infrastructure in its country, to give them instructions, but all that without being involved directly with their activities.”
Ansari thinks differently. According to him, there was a debate among some hard-line elements in Iran about “whether my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Those hard-liners discussed the possibility of cooperating with Al-Qa’ida. “But as far as I am aware, certainly the notion of using Al-Qa’ida or Talibanesque people in the service of Iran was one that was rejected by the Iranian side.”
The CIA refused to comment on The Media Line’s inquiries regarding possible relations between Al-Qa’ida and Iran, and also regarding Hamid Reza Zakeri.